Violence volatility across Mexico

By Adina Moloman

Source: The Economist, CASESDE, Open Democracy

The fight against organized crime has been the priority of Felipe Calderón’s government since it started in 2006 and it was registered in the past five years a large  number of murders related to organized crime (between 40,000-50,000 ).  Surprisingly statistics shows that after high rates of murders between 2006-2010, the 2011’s rate rise, of 8%, which represents a significant slowdown comparing to 29%(increase in murder rates) in the past years.

There are a few theories to explain this:

The cooperation between the Mexican security forces and their American advisers, who work together under the Mérida Initiative[1]

The use of an alternative strategy where the Mexican government has declared itself opens to dialogue with civil society, where the society was willing to cooperate (by making anonymous calls to report any suspicious situation).

A general theory mentioned that after a period of territorial fighting between drug cartels, the gangs are settling back into a new equilibrium. The result is the supremacy of Sinaloan groups who were fighting against another criminal organizations. This has been the case in Baja California, where it disputed control with the Arellano Félix zone of operation.

Economic factors such as: the slow down of the demand for cocaine in the United States and on the other side an improvement on Mexican job policy concerning young people.

This measures conducted different results in different regions of the country with interesting variation at the state level. It have fallen sharply since 2010 in Tijuana border town and risen equally sharply in previously safe cities (such as Monterrey) and states like Oaxaca and Veracruz.

Even when it’s a difficult job to eradicate criminal groups, a satisfactory result could be the stabilization and control of the violence across the country.